A server may support the operation of various types of applications or other systems. In such a computing environment, external management of a system instance may be provided in some cases. External management of an application may provide outside control and monitoring of the application, including such functions as system start-up and shutdown and analysis of various system states that may not be practical or allowable from within the system.
However, the variety of client platforms that may be used for external management may complicate system operations. In conventional server operations, external monitoring of system operations may be provided in some forms, but a conventional management system is generally inflexible and is not compatible with multiple clients.
Management operations by heterogeneous platforms generally require different types of processes and interfaces. In one possible example, management operations for Microsoft Windows environments are not necessarily compatible with any other platform. In conventional systems, an interface that is intended to connect with an external manager will be limited to a certain environment, thus requiring that multiple interfaces be provided if multiple different client platforms are to be served.